In Real Queer America, Allen takes us on a cross-country road-trip stretching all the way from Provo, Utah to the Rio Grande Valley to the Bible Belt to the Deep South. Her motto for the trip: "Something gay every day." Making pit stops at drag shows, political rallies, and hubs of queer life across the heartland, she introduces us to scores of extraordinary LGBT people working for change, from the first openly transgender mayor in Texas history to the manager of the only queer night club in Bloomington, Indiana, and many more.

Capturing profound cultural shifts underway in unexpected places and revealing a national network of chosen family fighting for a better world, Real Queer America is a treasure trove of uplifting stories and a much-needed source of hope and inspiration in these divided times.

About the Author

Samantha Allen is a GLAAD Award-winning journalist and the author of Love & Estrogen (Amazon Original Stories). She is a senior reporter for The Daily Beast covering LGBT issues and a former Sex + Life reporter for Fusion. She received her Ph.D. in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Emory University in 2015 and was the 2013 recipient of the Kinsey Institute's John Money Fellowship for Scholars of Sexology. She has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, and NPR's On the Media. She met her wife in a Kinsey Institute elevator--a true queer love story.

Praise For Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States…

"Real
Queer America is a book necessary for anyone in -- or allied with -- the
queer community, especially those of us who see the bad news day after day. [Allen
is] sharing the beauty of the spaces that LGBTQ+ people have carved out for
themselves, and she's giving credit where credit is very much overdue, because
it's the queer folk who live and stay in red states -- whether by choice or due
to a lack of options -- who have to survive there and work to make them better."—Los Angeles Times

"Samantha Allen's America is filled with buoyant queer people in
supposedly red states living their lives with resilience and joy. This
moving journey starts out in Utah--but Allen's road ultimately takes the
reader to the center of her heart. Surprising, inspiring, and
thoughtful."—Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of SHE'S NOT THERE and LONG BLACK VEIL

"It's kind of like a trans Travels with Charley in Search
of America, but without Steinbeck's lightly misogynist depictions of
women and meandering, stream of consciousness. As Samantha Allen travels across
the country's reddest states and perhaps the most unsafe for queer people, she
unearths a humanity that the midwest and south are rarely afforded. Queer people
exist everywhere, not just cities, and this book is a fierce testament to that."—Out Magazine

"Allen argues that queerness thrives everywhere, perhaps even more so in states
like Indiana, Texas, and Tennessee, precisely because there's still so much
advocacy work to do. Allen's openness about her personal story--including
growing up Mormon, living an angst-filled double life in Provo, coming out as transgendered,
meeting her wife in an elevator at the Kinsey Institute, and undergoing surgery
to get a vagina--invites respect. She writes with loving curiosity about other
people in the LGBTQ community and blends this with national-level reporting on
political and historical LGBTQ issues."—Booklist (Starred Review)

"I love Samantha Allen! Her voice
is an essential part of the movement and a new brand of queer hero for these dark times.
In the face of the alt-right and crypto fascists, I say- Queeros
Assemble!"—Lilly Wachowski, co-writer and co-director of The Matrix trilogy and co-creator of the GLAAD Award winning Netflix series Sense8

"In this clever combination of easy
travelogue and thoughtful exploration of queerness in America, journalist Allen
retraces her transformation from a Mormon missionary in Utah to a transgender
woman living happily in rural Florida...Queer readers will nod knowingly at the
descriptions of finding gay-friendly hangouts and questioning whether public
hand-holding is safe in a new area, and readers without that experience will
still enjoy Allen's charming, humorous recounting of the ultimate road trip
through rainbow-colored America."—Publishers Weekly

"Real Queer
Americais
a delight to read...an engrossing journey full of humor, vulnerability, insight,
and joy. What results is a beautiful tapestry of, well, the real queer America... Real
Queer Americais well-written and well-researched, and it's a
blast to read, but perhaps its most essential question is that of how
complicit 'blue state' LGBTQ people are in dismissing red states as scary
places for queers. The whole world is scary, for queers and for everyone.
Perhaps Real Queer Americawill inspire the reader to be more
involved in fighting discrimination everywhere."—Rewire

"Samantha Allen doesn't just have her finger on the pulse of queer and trans America--the pulse runs through her fingers and onto the screen and page. I am always amazed at her capacity to get the story, convey the facts, and yet leave no doubt as to what really matters behind the buzzwords and slogans: real people with real lives you'll be grateful to have encountered."

—Jay Michaelson, author of GOD VS. GAY?

"In her generous, clear-eyed reporting, Samantha Allen invites us to see ourselves for who we really are: a country of queer possibility. Her work proves these American stories are too powerful to ever be kept in their place."

—Melissa Gira Grant, author of PLAYING THE WHORE

"Allen is smart-as-hell, but inclusive and
impassioned. Hers' might not be the book all the gay boys are talking
about in an exclusive NYC salon, but it is the book the rest of us can read
aloud at the kitchen table with our queer family and our blood family, with our
chosen sisters and our yet-to-be-educated uncles...So many wonderful books get
written for the NYC and San Francisco LGBTQ community. I'm glad Samantha Allen
wrote Real Queer America for the rest of us."—Lambda Literary

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